Making a Cinema ready version for Living the Tradition

Living the Tradition can now be requested in any local cinema in the US or Canada through Gathr (click here), but to project it in the best possible quality on a many metres wide screen, a special digital file is needed called DCP, or Digital Cinema Package. Having such a file made by a third party company is rather expensive, so we have researched the topic and found a way to Do It Ourselves. Martin Langley, manager of the 101 year old Phoenix Picture House in Oxford, was so very kind to allow us to test a 3 minute excerpt of the film in room 1 of the Picture House to see if the process we are following works fine.

 

The 101-years old Phoenix Picture House in Oxford
The 101-years old Phoenix Picture House in Oxford (photo Tom Lindsay)

Maarten came with a USB stick with the 3-Gb large DCP file, Martin put it in the projection machinery and… wow! we could watch a piece of Living the Tradition on the big screen of a real cinema, sitting in a real cinema chairs (a shame that it was only 3 minutes long and we could not finish the popcorn). What an amazing experience. Everything just worked perfectly, image and sound were gorgeous.

The USB stick that holds the 3 minute excerpt of Living the Tradition in Digital Cinema format
The USB stick that holds the 3 minute excerpt of Living the Tradition in Digital Cinema format (photo Tom Lindsay)

 

We are almost done making the full DCP, which is taking 125 hours of computer time on Maarten’s laptop…technology is great when it works!

 

Part of the Digital project at the Phoenix Picture House in Oxford
Part of the Digital projection system at the Phoenix Picture House in Oxford (photo Tom Lindsay)

2 Responses to Making a Cinema ready version for Living the Tradition

  1. Very cool experience!
    Glad to hear that your process works.
    Now the next stage: how to get it into cinema’s nearby.
    Will you provide us (the audience worldwide) with information how to achieve that?

    • Thanks Harro! We hope we can get it to cinemas in the EU as well! For now, US / Canada only….